Slovakia: Calling for an End to the Persecution Outside the Chinese Embassy on New Year’s Eve

On the evening of the last day of 2004, Falun Gong practitioners from the Czech Republic and Slovakia gathered at the Chinese Embassy in Slovakia’s capital city, Bratislava. They held a peaceful appeal to raise awareness about the five years of persecution against Falun Gong, a persecution has already taken over 1,200 innocent lives.

The Chinese Embassy is a very fitting place for the practitioners to express their disagreement with the actions of the Chinese Communist regime, who have used all types of torture methods, defamation campaigns, propaganda and persecution in attempts to force Falun Gong practitioners to give up their beliefs. Although human rights workers have documented over 38,000 specific cases of torture or severe abuse and between 200,000 and 1 million Falun Gong practitioners have been illegally sent to forced labour camps without trials, there has never been a case of a Falun Gong practitioner retaliating to the persecutors. Throughout these most horrific violations of human rights and basic human freedoms, Falun Gong practitioners have truly upheld the practice’s guiding principles: truthfulness, compassion and tolerance. Former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin, who issued the order that Falun Gong must be “eradicated” back in 1999, is now the subject of 15 of the 46 lawsuits filed against the chief persecutors of Falun Gong practitioners. The time when they will all be brought to justice continues to draw nearer.